WATCH: A ballet dancer who was critically injured in a rollerblading accident two weeks ago appears to be making a remarkable recovery. Leigh Kjekstad reports.
UPDATE (Aug.27): Lucila Munaretto has now regained full consciousness and is no longer in a coma.
The friends of an Argentinian ballet dancer badly hurt in a roller-skating accident in North Vancouver last week are hoping to fundraise enough money to make sure she can make a full recovery.
On Aug.13, 21-year-old ballerina, Lucila Munaretto, was roller-skating in North Vancouver when she ran the stop sign and collided with a mini-van.
Police say they were told by witnesses that she was not wearing a safety helmet at the time of the crash.
She suffered significant injury and trauma to her head and body, the kind of injuries that are devastating for a promising dancer.
Munaretto was a well-known dancer in the local dancing community. Originally from Argentina, she trained in Brazil and in 2012, was awarded a scholarship to come and dance in Vancouver. Before the crash, she was training with with Coastal City Ballet at Pacific DanceArts.
“Lucila is one of those people that you instantly bond with,” says her rehearsal director Katie Bois. “She has a very open heart and is willing do anything for anyone.”
She is also one of the top dancers at the studio. “Every once in a while you come across a dancer who has that extra little something, that special spark on stage that the audience members connect with,” says Bois.
She says Munaretto is recovering much faster than expected, even though she is still in coma.
She has severely damaged ligaments in her neck and had to have surgery right away on Friday morning to insert metal plates and stabilize her spine. She also shattered her jaw and had to have reconstructive surgery on Saturday. That’s on top of a broken pelvis and wrist.
But Bois says they are harbouring hope Munaretto can make a full recovery.
“We are all very confident that based on her injuries, she will get back to dancing,” she says. “Because that’s Lucila.”
Bois says her fellow dancers were shocked to learn the news.
Her friends have put together a fundraising campaign to raise money that would ensure Munaretto does not have to worry about financial matters on her way to recovery.
More than $24,000 have been raised in just two days.
Bois says they started with a fundraising goal of just $10,000 on Friday, to get her family to Canada to be by their daughter’s side.
They reached their goal in just four hours, with most donations coming from her fellow dancers, who struggle financially themselves, says Bois.
They now hope to raise as much as $100,000 after researching just how much rehabilitation may cost.
“Her injuries would be expensive for anyone, let alone a ballet dancer,” adds Bois.
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